International Online Training Program On Intractable
Conflict

Flight (Refugees)

Another common response to threat is to simply flee the area. This strategy is widely
used in violent confrontations by civilians who are understandably afraid that they may be
caught in the cross fire between opposing military units or become occupied and subjugated
by the winners. This approach is also used by combatants who fear that they are about to
lose.

Flight frequently leads to large numbers of refugees crossing international boundaries
often with nothing more than the clothes on the their back. They often are people without
a country with few, if any, legal rights, who are also desperately poor and largely unable
to care for themselves. Thus, they are often totally dependent upon the goodwill of the
international community.

Refugee problems, especially if they are allowed to persist for an extended period of
time, can easily become a major source of continuing conflict. First, there is the
conflict between the refugees and inhabitants of the land they moved into in desperation.
Second, there is the conflict over who will provide support for the refugees whom have
moved into an area that is already having trouble supporting its pre-refugee
population. There are likely to be continuing cross-border conflicts
between the refugees and the people who drove them from their homes, as well.

In some cases, refugee problems are relatively short lived with people simply fleeing
areas of fighting, but returning home once the fighting stops. In this case, the
priorities are to 1) provide immediate relief to the refugees, and 2)arrange for a prompt
cease-fire which allows them to return home.

A more difficult situation arises in cases where people are forced out of their homes
by invading forces which want to take them for their own use. The people who move into the
land vacated by the refugees, are likely to view it as theirs. (The invaders may have
long-standing historical reasons for considering the land to be their
"homeland.") This means that any effort to return the refugees to their
original homes is likely to encounter intense opposition from those who just settled
in the area

In the United States, we tell a story which illustrates the difficulty of the refugee
problem.

In the story two people are arguing over who owns a particular piece of land.

The first person says, "I want this land."

The second person says, "No, you can't have it, it's mine."

The first person replies, "Where did you get it?"

The answer, "From my father."

"Where did he get it?"

"From his father."

"Where did he get it?"

"From his father."

"Where did he get it?"

"He fought for it."

"Well, I'll fight you for it."

While it is obviously impossible to create new land so that there is enough room for
both groups, it may be possible to transform uninhabitable areas into habitable ones. For
examples, deserts may be made habitable with elaborate and expensive water diversion and
irrigation systems. Still, this is a solution which is only occasionally possible and
requires a wealthy party with a strong interest in resolving the issue.

Also important are well-funded refugee relief organizations capable of meeting the
refugee's immediate needs for food, housing, and security. By removing immediate threats
to their survival and health, relief efforts can provide time for more difficult peace
making and repatriation efforts.

Repatriation can be a very difficult, slow, and painful process, especially when two
groups consider the same land, even the same houses "home." At times, negotiated
peace treaties can be written to specify how such conflicts are to be resolved. Yet
decisions made by the elites are not always accepted by the people involved. Efforts
must e made to encourage their compliance with negotiated decisions--using positive and/or
negative sanctions and persuasion to obtain the desired result. (Positive incentives
often work better than negative sanctions, or the two can be used in combination.
Another approach starts at the grassroots level, getting the people who are affected
working together to develop a solution that meets all parties' needs and that all sides
will accept. This is a much slower process, and agreement may not be possible (as
this is often an unavoidable win-lose problem(, but if a solution can be found it is
likely to be more stable than a solution imposed from above.